


but now that the stars are in your eyes (i'm beginning to see the light)

by goodboots



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 18:55:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12754188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodboots/pseuds/goodboots
Summary: He and Jessica Jones meet up once every couple weeks after that first encounter.They have a drink, and a long chat about increasingly existential and/or trivial quandaries, like her search for a new day job ("why on earth would you want to waste your time with something like that?" he said, but still glanced over her resume for typos on request), and whether he should move from Soho to Nolita ("your rich guy problems are like a pre-made drinking game," she said. "I'm gonna take a shot every time you say 'aesthetics,' 'kay?").It's not quite a friendship, not when they have absolutely nothing in common except that they are uniquely odd, but it's a rare connection that he wants to maintain.She calls it Failed Superhero Support Group, which he's told her he thinks is stupid.





	but now that the stars are in your eyes (i'm beginning to see the light)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Storyshark2005](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storyshark2005/gifts).



> For Storyshark2005, who kindly has been waiting for something new from these two. Y'all, I'm working on the last part of "on the run," I swear to god, but honestly that plot is fighting me and it's just intense porn so far, and so I had to do SOMETHING with all the autumnal casual falling-in-love fluff I never wrote for this pair. So, you know, here it is.
> 
> Now available in Russian! Thank you Ewige for translating! https://ficbook.net/readfic/6389667

He's on his way to dinner when he sees her.

It's early evening, just after sunset, on a side-street in Midtown, and he spies her saving a hapless bystander from a couple of street thugs, muggers or similar; and his first instinct is to intervene, which is new. Usually he avoids getting involved in _anything_ ; usually, his first instinct is to slink away.

Instead he sprints up the sidewalk, shouting "stop!" like a complete idiot, because they _do_ , all four of them: the bystander, who'd been kicked into a heap of trash alongside a chain-link fence and has been struggling to stand; twenty paces ahead, two thugs, both with stark fear on their faces; and the beautiful dark-haired girl in the atrocious outfit who's in the middle of punching their lights out.

They're all staring at him, of course they are, he's gone and blown his cover completely.

"No, don't _stop_ ," he corrects swiftly, and they all unfreeze and look at each other, then back to him. One thug catches on faster than the other and starts to run, and Kilgrave stutters out a "wait!" that locks him in place.

The girl is faster than she should be, and catches up to the runner easily, swinging him around and into the fence face-first.

"You don't move," Kilgrave loudly tells the other mugger. The man stays rooted to the spot, terrified.

The victim is breathing heavily behind them, rising slowly to his feet, but Kilgrave's hardly aware of his surroundings enough to notice: he can't tear his gaze away from her. 

Jesus, she's a vision, all wavy dark hair and wild eyes and luscious creamy skin, just a shade too pale to be healthy. (Spends too much time indoors, probably—though surely not a cubicle dweller? She should be leaping off tall buildings in a ridiculous costume, out there with the heroes!)

He hasn't felt anything approaching wonder in…maybe not ever, actually, but he feels it watching her spit vitriol at this random mugger.

Kilgrave doesn't so much as breathe until she finishes kicking the shit out of the one man and returns to where he's standing with the second thug.

"You can move again," he mutters under his breath, and the man relaxes slightly, only to tense up again when the girl punches him square in the jaw and gives him the same treatment.

She tells them both, "Consider that a fucking warning. If I catch you trying anything like this ever again, I promise you, you'll regret it," and watches them both limp away.

It's on the tip of his tongue to suggest calling the police, but then she did rather more damage to those men than she could reasonably explain, and besides, that's more involved than he wants to get in this—situation.

She stalks down the street, and he follows, absolutely rapt.

"You OK?" she asks the bruised man who'd presumably been suffering the beating of his life until she appeared. 

He's fine, he says. Even Kilgrave, who has never been accosted on the street and therefore has no idea what that experience could be like, realizes this is a drastic understatement.

(He _should_ be concerned with this person, who has just been viciously attacked. That would be empathetic of him. But Kilgrave's not fascinated, not like he is by the girl).

The victim's name is Malcolm, and he says he lives just a couple blocks over. No, he's fine to get home alone, he'll call his roommate—here Kilgrave surrenders his cell phone unquestioningly, Malcolm's having been smashed in the altercation—Malcolm says he'll just make this call and then they can both go, he'll be okay on his own.

The girl won't hear anything of the sort, and insists on waiting patiently at Malcolm's side until the roommate appears, listening to the details of how those lowlifes had jumped him.

Neither of them pays much attention to Kilgrave, lingering nearby. He pockets his phone and thinks he should go, this would be the perfect time to go, just a strange little distraction on his way to dinner, but finds himself stuck. He needs to speak with her. He needs to hear what she sounds like talking to him. He needs to know absolutely everything about her.

 _Calm down_ , he tells himself sternly, _you don't want to scare her._

She's watching him out of the corner of her eye as the roommate assumes responsibility for Malcolm, bundling him into a taxi bound for the hospital, and then she and Kilgrave are alone on the corner; just him, alone with the most amazing woman on the planet, then.

"Thanks for almost helping," she mutters in his direction, turning to walk away. 

He panics, and immediately breaks his rule about questions, because he just has to _know_. 

"What's your name?" he demands.

"Jessica," she says, still walking away, "Jessica Jones," like she's James bloody Bond.

"No,” he calls out, “I meant your superhero name. You must have one."

"No,” she says, turning back to him, frowning, “just, Jessica Jones."

She's still walking away. He doesn't want her to walk away.

"Wait, stop," he says, like a coward. She stills immediately. "No, I mean, do whatever you want, you can keep walking, but consider talking with me, please."

Yes, he's stalling. Stalling is a valid tactic in this scenario.

She whips her head around, stares at him with the widest, most enchanting eyes he's ever seen. " _How_ are you doing this?" she asks.

He's never much liked coming clean about what he is, but he's also never wanted to talk to someone so much in his entire life.

 "Have dinner with me and I'll tell you," he offers. "Or you can leave right now, your choice."

 #

Jessica Jones warily admits that she likes Chinese food, so he steers her toward the little Szechuan place where he'd planned on dining anyway. 

He introduces himself as Kilgrave after the host leads them to his preferred table, and she snorts. "That is _not_ your real name."

He fishes in his jacket pocket for his passport, and produces it for her. Of course it’s his real name; not the one he was born with, fine, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t _real_. 

"OK," she says, unconvinced. "So did your parents just hate you or—?" Something odd must show on his face, because she immediately reacts. "Oh, shit, no, I was just kidding."

"It's fine. I'd rather not discuss it. Tell me about yourself, Jessica."

It's too vague to be a true compulsion, but he's still railroading her into doing the talking. As soon as she thinks of something her brain can latch on to and form a talking point around, she'll say it out loud. 

Her eyes land on the shrimp platter on the next table over, and she informs him that she is mildly allergic to shellfish.

She looks properly alarmed as soon as the words leave her mouth. 

The waiter comes over just then and Kilgrave lapses into his habitual order, which, yes, fine, includes several items that aren't on the menu (but that he knows the chef certainly knows how to prepare), and the arrival instructions for when their food should come out. 

He's ordered enough for two, just to be on the safe side, which is probably wise because Jessica is just staring at him like he's grown a second head, and when the waiter turns to her she orders a whiskey, neat, "and keep 'em coming."

"Sorry," he says once they're alone again, the word tasting foreign in his mouth, "I dine here frequently, but I'm afraid I am very particular about my food. I suppose that must have seemed unusual."

"There's a lot of unusual going on, that's for sure."

This is not going as well as he'd hoped. "You're uncomfortable. What can I do to make that better?"

"Give me a fucking minute to get myself together, Jesus," she says quickly, and then looks murderous. She really didn't want to say that.

She gets up and leaves the table, walks back toward the hostess's podium and rounds the corner. The washrooms are in that direction, he reasons, but then so is the exit.

She hadn't taken her jacket off when they sat down. It's entirely possible that she's leaving. He thinks about going after her, about making her talk to him, but he knows he can't do that. That would be violating one of his major rules, and he's already bent too many of his minor ones in the forty minutes since meeting her. 

Her whiskey arrives, and he thinks that if nothing else he'll have something to drink his sorrows away with. 

She returns after five minutes, and he grins at her as she retakes her seat. 

"I was just thinking, if I'd buggered up so badly that you didn't come back, at least I'd be able to drink my sorrow straight away," he says, with a nod at her drink.

She gives him a look he can't quite place, then raises the tumbler and takes a long sip, settles the glass back on the table with a thud.

"You say a lot of what you're thinking," she says.

"Yes, and?"

"Most people don't do that."

He shrugs, unconcerned. "Most people have to worry about offending someone. The worst that can happen to me is I say something embarrassing, and then I tell who ever I'm talking to not mind, or to forget all about it."

She draws back across the table slightly, and he worries he's somehow offended her. "Like mind control?"

"Yes," because he's not going to sugar-coat it. "Exactly like that."

"So, what, you just wipe everyone's memory when something like that happens?" she asks, tilting her head back at the street they'd come from, with the thugs.

"I can't wipe anyone's memory," he corrects. "It's more like—people don't have space in their heads to remember every unusual conversation they've ever had with a stranger. I just tell them not to worry about it, and so they don't. No harm done."

"This is incredible. I've never met anyone else who..." she trails off, shaking her head.

"Nor have I," he replies, smiling at her. "You, you're amazing. Your _strength_. What else can you do?"

"Throw, lift, punch; fly, almost." Her expression darkens. "Are you actually making me answer these questions? I don't think I wanted to tell you that."

For all she looks annoyed, she sounds bewildered; he knows it's a lot to take in, but that's why he prefers not to tell many people. The number of people who know about his ability he can count on one hand; and two of them are the monsters who made him this way.

He straightens and looks down at his plate feels his face flush.

"Sorry, it's just force of habit. Most of the time I only ask general questions of strangers, like, oh, 'is that really the best deal you can give me?' of my travel agent. I'm usually much more careful with my friends."

He's lying, but only about the part about having friends, and it clearly reassures her. She takes another sip of her whiskey and says, "So, what's your deal?"

And it occurs to him that this woman owes him no explanations or information, but perhaps if he gives her something in exchange...

"People do what I tell them," he starts, though it's frankly surreal to him that he's explaining the defining facet of his life in such a blasé setting. "So I usually try not to tell anyone to do anything." 

 # 

He hasn't always been careful. In his youth he was reckless, careless. He's not done anything that breaks any laws, (or, not any important ones—never got anyone injured, never ruined a life or broke a heart); but he wasn't as good at holding himself apart.

He was young and stupid, and testing his limits seemed inevitable. He has robbed a bank, walked up to the teller and told her to give him twenty thousand dollars or else, just to see how it would feel (answer: nothing like Hollywood would have you believe. He'd thrown up immediately afterward and chucked all that money in a skip). 

He learned that he had no limits, but there's a reason limits exist. So he had to craft his own, piecemeal and specific but firm.

As a result, Kilgrave considers himself probably the world's foremost expert on consent, and how to go about attaining it without looking a complete twat.

He learned early on that he can't just ask a pretty girl, "Do you actually want to shag me, and if so, is it because you want to or because I want you to, because I legitimately can't tell."

Statements like _that_ were effective as preventing any unpleasantness, certainly, but also equally effective at preventing any woman from wanting to contact him ever again.

He came up with a phrase. "You should think about," is his standby, his trusted modifier.

"You should think about coming home with me," is crucially different from "come home with me," because the former makes no requirements. He's said it to women and had them turn him down flat, had them laugh in his face or spit back vicious words. It's reassuring, in a way: they are free to say those things to him, so he knows he hasn't slipped up.

He asks a lot of rhetorical questions:

"Have you considered—?"

"What about—?"

"Do you suppose—?" 

He tends to come across as a bit of an overly-solicitous swot, but he can live with that.

#

He and Jessica Jones meet up once every couple weeks after that first encounter.

They have a drink, and a long chat about increasingly existential and/or trivial quandaries, like her search for a new day job ("why on earth would you want to waste your time with something like that?" he said, but still glanced over her resume for typos on request), and whether he should move from Soho to Manhattan ("your rich guy problems are like a pre-made drinking game," she'd said. "I'm going to take a shot every time you say 'aesthetics,' 'kay?"). It's not quite a friendship, not when they have absolutely nothing in common expect that they are uniquely odd, but it's a rare connection that he wants to maintain.

She calls it Failed Superhero Support Group, which he's told her he thinks is stupid.

"If you've got a better name, I'd love to hear it," she laughs, sliding the wine bottle across the table at him.

They're at some trendy pub in Williamsburg, her choice; though he thinks she chose it just to annoy him. The light fixtures are warm white string lights wound around cheese graters. His sense of taste is having an allergic reaction to the décor.

"It's not the name I object to, it's the very concept. I haven't failed at being a superhero, I haven't even tried."

She rolls her eyes and says, "You helped me with those muggers."

 _Helped_ is generous. He'd interfered, and then lingered obnoxiously. 

"That was unusual for me. I try not to get involved."

She reaches for the bottle, tops up his glass and then hers.

"Kilgrave, don't be offended by this," she says lightly, "but what the fuck are you trying to do here?"

It's a lucky thing she couldn't turn his ability against him, or else he'd be forced to answer honestly, and say: _trying to either stop being mesmerized by you or hoping you'll start being interested in me._

She hadn't actually _said_ she wasn't interested in him, but then he also hadn't asked. It wouldn't be prudent to assume anything without a confirmation or a denial, and he was enjoying these casual conversations too much to chance it. He could live a while longer in this no man's land of hope.

Instead of any awkward confessions of attraction, he leans forward on his forearms and says, "I'm drinking sub-par scotch. Any you?"

"I meant, with your time. You've got this amazing opportunity, you could be this major force in the world, and instead you're—I mean, fuck, what do you even do all day?"

This isn't the first time he's faced this kind of criticism, though it's weird to hear it outside of his own head. He shrugs. "I have a very full day, typically. I go to museums, read books, take walks. I travel frequently. I cook."

"You cook," she says.

"Why shouldn't I cook? I like to eat well enough."

Other people have hobbies, he's pretty sure. He's relatively certain his life is enviable, in that his is almost entirely composed of the things he enjoys, and very little of what he does not. And, honestly, he has fun, what with the designer clothes and buckets of money and freedom to do nearly anything he wants; so he can't quite place the look she gives him. Not pity, but something sad.

"I just think it's a waste, to have this amazing potential and not try to use it."

He smirks at her across the hideous reclaimed-wood table. "What, do you think I'd be better off spending my days in a cubicle, like you, extorting colleagues for free diet soda?"

"I don't know. Maybe you've got it all figured out."

 He knows he doesn't, but he doesn't think she does either.

 #

Three weeks later, he shows up five minutes late to Failed Superhero Support Group, and Jessica has beaten him to their table, but she isn't alone.

"Kilgrave, this is Trish," she says, introducing the sunny blonde seated across from her with a wave. "Trish, compulsion guy."

He takes the empty chair next to the friend and says pointedly, "I will not answer to 'compulsion guy.' Pleased to meet you, Trish."

 "You literally just did," Jessica says. She's clearly in a good mood. "You actually showed up at the right time," she informs him, then hollers, "shots on Trish Walker!"

"She does this," Trish explains in an undertone, a fond but long-suffering look on her face. He imagines Jessica puts that look on a lot of faces over time.  

Trish is polite, pretty enough, and well-mannered, but not mesmerizing the way Jessica is. She talks to Jessica, and Jessica makes an effort to include him in their conversation, but he's content just to listen to them converse for a while. Trish at least seems to be invested in Jessica's burgeoning superhero career, and he can't say he disapproves—at least she has thought of practicalities, like a costume and name. Someone ought to think of those things, and Jessica might find the idea of a secret identity odd, but Trish points out that they are standard-issue for the Avengers, et cetera, so why shouldn't she have one?

He voices his agreement. "You'd be a fool to run around New York, using your ability under your own name. Wind up locked away in one of those SHIELD study programs."

He meant it to sound encouraging, about the identity thing, but possibly it comes out alarming.

"They don't really do that," Trish objects. "That's just in comic books."

"Oh, believe me, it's true enough."

"You've seen it?" she challenges.

"I've heard," because his distaste for people is often outweighed by his insatiable hunger for information, and of course he's kept an ear to the ground. The last few years, especially after the Battle of New York, how could he not stay vigilant? "From reliable sources, and I guarantee you, SHIELD or similar would not hesitate to capture and study either of us. They certainly view our kind as problems to be contained."

"Well," Trish says, arch, "maybe you should be contained."

He curls his lip, considering. "Maybe I should. What makes you say that?"

"You're dangerous," she answers immediately, then looks sour.

Fine, that wasn't precisely an accident, but he likes to cut to the chase.

Trish clearly realizes what's happened, but seems content to stand her ground, even if she'd not meant to disclose that she's alarmed by him.

She says, "Look, Jessica didn't explain you very well—"

"—I object to that," Jessica says, mock-offended. She's three drinks in, and has either missed or is willfully ignoring any tension between them. "I told you he likes ugly purple clothes and is pretentious. I did _great_ at describing him."

"Oh, thank you for that," he says, sarcastic.

"Welcome," she smirks at him, and clambers out of the booth. "Bathroom break, back in five."

"How drunk is she?" he asks once she's out of earshot.

Trish shakes her head. "Barely tipsy. She'll be fine, high tolerance is part of her thing," she dismisses with a hand-wave. She's more interested in pursuing their prior conversation, and she barrels on: "Jessica said you can do, like, mind control. And that sounds like something that should be regulated. I mean, how do we know you haven't been controlling our minds this whole time we've been sitting here?"

He is the opposite of offended. He is impressed by her guts, and also amused that this woman thinks she knows the dark depth of his ability. She's afraid of the _idea_ of it.

"In all likelihood, you are correct, and I ought to be regulated, though God help anyone who tries to lock me up," he says. "But to answer your question, you will notice that I haven't been controlling your mind, as you say—and what gauche phrasing, it's much more subtle than that—because if I had been, you wouldn't have had time to even question it."

"If that's meant to be reassuring, it doesn't really work," Trish says.

He shakes his head. "Oh, I'm aware. It wasn't meant to make you feel better. I'm simply being honest. And besides that, my ability is hardly more dangerous than Jessica's."

The small crease between her brows smooths out. "That's different. Jessica's trying to help people, she has a moral imperative."

"So do I," he says. "The only difference is that mine is only self-directed."

#

The next week, it's just him and Jessica again, though he doesn't think the previous outing went badly, per se. Trish seemed genial enough, and the tension diffused quickly once they moved on to other topics. Still, he's on edge when he meets Jessica at the cocktail bar just off Madison Avenue—his choice of locale this week, he's not going back to Brooklyn—and after an hour of mindless chit-chat he's tired of talking around it.

"Your friend is afraid of me, you know," he says.

Jessica nods briskly, swallows her wine. " _Was_ afraid of you. Now she's just concerned that I'm going to annoy you into a life of crime."

He can tell that she means it as a joke, but she doesn't know how close to the truth she is. And he should change the subject, should comment on their entrees or the music (some kind of '40s hits playlist that he's going to have to Spotify later, god bless Ella Fitzgerald), but he can't make himself let her off easy.

"Not funny, Jessica," he says.

"Come on, what's your problem? You're so grouchy today."

"You're too flippant." He'd like to be flippant sometimes, too. "She's not wrong, you know. It would be very easy for me to abuse my privileges. It's quite a lot of work not to."

"So, what," she scoffs, "you want credit for not being a massive piece of shit? Go whine about it on Twitter, with all the other assholes."

He sighs. He's not expecting credit, but her casual attitude toward her powers is very different from his relationship with his.

He says, "Just because things are easy for you--"

"Easy for me?" Oh, she's not flippant, she's suddenly, quietly, furious. "I lost my parents, asshole. My little brother died because of me."

"Well," he shoots back, annoyed into truthfulness, "mine are alive and scared to death of me."

He doesn't talk about that, and this is the first time he's heard her mention anything about a family. 

They're silent a moment, staring each other down across the table.

"We are so fucked up." She hefts the bottle at him. "More wine?"

He shakes his head. He desperately wants another drink, wants to forcibly change the subject, something to lighten this mood between them, but he knows why that's a bad idea. "I need to get some air. Care for a walk with me?"

"I shouldn't," she hedges. "It's getting late. I've got to be up early, job interview."

"Right."

She smiles at him, one of her rare true smiles, untainted by sarcasm, which she bestows like a gift. "Yeah, fine, let's take a walk."

They wind up in Central Park, which he normally gives a wide berth because tourists give him hives; it's better after dark, though, and they circle the park for over an hour, aimless, walking in the wrong direction for both of them, hands shoved in their pockets to keep warm. She's not quite dressed for the weather, and declines his scarf when he offers it.

"Is it hard, being so careful with what you say?" she finally asks.

He thinks about it a long moment before answering. "I suppose it depends who I'm talking to. I slip up, you know, but I do my best not to—to make anyone say or do anything harmful. I just hope that's enough."

"Trish didn't mean anything by it, you know. It sounds scary when your friend says 'I met a person who can make anyone do anything,' but she knows I wouldn't be hanging out with you if you weren't a good guy."

"Do you think I'm a good guy?" It's the second question he's ever asked her that doesn't have an escape route, but he needs her to tell the truth.

"Mostly, yes. Nobody is all good."

They hit Central Park North just before midnight and part ways, him starting the long walk back to his penthouse in Soho, her in a cab destined for her apartment in Hell's Kitchen. He spends the entire time journey home alternating between wishing he were in the cab beside her, and then being annoyed at himself for being so maudlin.

#

She cancels on their weekly meeting the next Thursday, and the one after that he's in Stockholm for an art exhibition he'd bought tickets for months ago.

He gets off the plane back in New York the following  Sunday evening with vague ideas about getting takeout and sleeping off the jet lag, but when he switches on his phone at the luggage terminal he finds he has six missed calls and four voicemails.

12:42AM: "Kilgrave, this is going to sound weird, but I need you to call me back. Don't call my phone, I don't have it with me right now, just call this number and ask for me and I'll explain everything."

6:11AM: "It's Jessica again. I really need you to call me back. You are possibly the only person on the planet who can help me right now."

7:22AM: "I'm not fucking around, Kevin, I'm in some serious shit and I'm callng in all my friendship chips right now. Call me the fuck back— _hey, no, you said I got another call_ — _fuck!_ "

11:05AM: "This is Trish Walker. Jessica gave me your number. She's in jail, and if we don't get her out before midnight an innocent man might very well die, not to mention the part where she's a murder suspect. If you care about her at all, you'll call me back, because she honestly—"

He closes the message before it finishes playing out and hits redial on the last missed call.

"Where is she, and how do I help?"

#

He hates doing this.

He's structured his life around not having to do this, not since his parents kicked him out at fourteen, and dealing with interested authorities was an unfortunate reality of his vagabond youth. He doesn't have the energy to regret any of the things he did to survive growing up, but it was also exhausting. And he's wiser now, he knows any time he uses his ability on such a large scale he's risking potential exposure.

He still does a good deal of manipulating systems in his own favour, of course. He's not above influencing hotel concierges, or bankers, or real estate agents. He does it often. Yes, when his new suit is provided free of charge, that's technically stealing; yes, the rent on his loft is criminally inexpensive; yes, he's never paid market rate for an airline ticket in his life. But he imagines based on his long study of how humans treat each other, that these are precisely the kind of petty, under-the-radar thefts most people would attempt, if they thought they could get away with it.

But this is illegality on a level he's never been comfortable with. He avoids law enforcement whenever possible, and just walking through the front doors of the police station in midtown Manhattan has his skin crawling.

Still, Jessica asked him for help, and at this point he's not the one in control. She could ask just about anything and he'd try to give it to her.

He consciously puts on a smile, and straightens his back, slows his step.

He talks his way through the first set of doors, shows a library card to the receptionist and tells her it's a detective ID, and she dutifully buzzes him through. There are thirty or so people in this room, most in uniform but a few apparent civilians mixed in. He identifies himself to one of them as Jessica's lawyer, and gently commands her to be brought out to meet with him.

She's brought out of the holding area with her hands locked together behind her back. She's got dark circles under her eyes, and her expression makes it clear that she is somewhere between furious and exhausted, but other than that she looks all right. He nods at her across the room, and she nods back.

Her phone privileges were apparently cut off after her third call, so they haven't been able to speak. But her sharp nod is a kind of signal.

The command itself is only part of his ability; the majority of the power is in intonation, in specific verbiage. And, crucially in situations where he's addressing a crowd, in catching his audience's attention. He's got to put a bit of showmanship in, or this will never work properly. 

He summarily jumps up onto the nearest desk.

"Hello, NYPD," Kilgrave says loudly. "Listen closely and do not move a muscle from your present positions. Alert no one to the information being imparted to you, as it is incredibly confidential, and you are being entrusted with it because you are all very good at your jobs and are valuable members of the community."

Going well so far, he thinks, scanning the room. All eyes are locked on him, as they should be.

"Three men were found dead yesterday morning in Riverside Park," he says. "You have arrested this young woman, Jessica Jones, as your primary suspect, after finding her in possession of their wallets and several files detailing their personal lives. However, it has recently become clear that this investigation has run its course. Miss Jones's arrest was simply a ruse to draw out the real culprit. You there, uncuff her."

The officer who led her into the room promptly does so.

Kilgrave doesn't trust himself to pause for breath, so he steamrolls ahead:

"The murderer has since been located in an abandoned warehouse in Albany, along with ample evidence tying him to the murders and the unharmed fourth victim. You," he turns to nearest officer, voice sharp, "will now call your counterparts on that police force to confirm. The rest of you," he raises his voice, "no one is going to panic, or notice anything outside of the ordinary this afternoon. You will all spend the next five minutes quietly going about your own business, with only the vaguest recollection of this young woman at all."

"All security tapes including our presences will be erased summarily. This has been a very ordinary day. That is all. Jessica," he waves her over, "with me."

She's at his side immediately, and falls into step behind him as he marches through the glass doors and stalks down the long corridor.

"Keep walking, don't look back, and don't run," he says in an undertone. "Draw no attention to yourself."

She does as he says, of course she does, but she whispers out the side of her mouth, "That was the scariest fucking thing I've ever seen," smiling sunnily at him, and he almost trips over his own feet as they round a corner and push through the doors into the cool autumn moonlight.

He wants to ask precisely what she means by that, only then they're hurtling themselves into Trish's car, and she's peeling away from the curb far too fast, and they did it, it's over, it's all fine.

#

A week later, he comes into possession of two tickets to the opera—Faust—, and Jessica says, "Oh, hell, why not?" and shows up to the theatre in a slinky black dress that makes his mouth go dry.

She turns out to hate opera, and spends the evening rolling her eyes and making snotty comments under her breath. He's never had such fun in his life. 

The go for a cocktail afterwards at the bar up the street from his building, and Jessica looks at him and says, "You know you're depressed, right?"

"Why, because I enjoy theatre? I thought that was called appreciating culture."

"No, dumbass," she smacks his arm lightly. "Because you didn't have anybody else to ask. Be honest, do you go to stuff like this alone?"

"Being comfortable exploring interests alone is hardly an indicator of mental health," he shoots back. He's not offended—he's usually alone, now, but it hasn't always been this way. He knows what it's like to be the life of the party, to be adored and celebrated. He'll stick with anonymity, thanks.

"I'll all that I have a melancholy streak, but I wouldn't go all the way to _depressed_."

She shrugs one elegant bare shoulder. "I would. You're all alone in the world, you're aimless."

"I'm not," he replies. "I simply choose my friends carefully. Case in point," he gestures to her.

"Are we friends now?" she says, teasing, "I thought you were just keeping me around in case SHIELD jumps you."

He grins. "Yes, well, you do owe me a jailbreak."

That seems to turn the mood, and she goes quiet. "The other day, at the police station…" she hesitates.

"Yes?"

"You've done that before."

"Yes."

"And you ask a lot of questions with escape routes, don't think I haven't noticed."

He shrugs, takes another sip of his wine. "Safer for everyone that way."

"I'm not trying to be a dick about you being lonely, it's just weird. You don't really have people, do you? What's the deal with your parents?"

"There's no 'deal.' I'm not a part of their life and they're not a part of mine." She's looking at him with dismay writ all over her face, and he kicks himself. She'd proably give her right arm for the option of not speaking with her parents. "It's for the best, honestly."

"What happened?"

He sighs. "Are we still doing that bargain of yours?"

She came up with this a couple months ago. Every time he asks her a non-optional question (which, to be fair, he only does when he needs to know if she's too drunk to get home safely, or distinguish if she really wants to see this movie or is only placating him), she keeps a tab, and will pay him back with her own non-optional question, to which he is not allowed to tell a lie.

Every other time she's prefaced it by saying _superpower question_ and then asking if he really is allergic to cats or if he just hates them, or whatever other pointless thing she wants to know.

"Yeah, but this isn't one," she says, taking away his easy out. "I'm not going to make you tell me, but I'd like it if you did."

Oh, she is good.

"It's not their fault, it's mine," he starts, and proceeds to briefly outline his tragedy of a childhood. 

"What made you leave?" she asks finally. 

"Oh, we had an argument about something petty. I can't even recall the details really, but the long and short is that my mother was pressing my school uniform at the time, and I told her to put the iron to her face," and as he says it he can suddenly smell the burning flesh. 

Jessica looks horrified. "And she—"

"Yes. After that, I knew I had to control my impulses better. Kids throw tantrums, but hurting someone is different. What kind of person would tell someone else to do that? And I was so angry, around them, all the time. It was safer for all involved if I went away."

"Was she okay?" 

He'll not lie to her, not now or ever. 

"No. She has extensive scarring on the left side of her face, though skin grafts helped with the worst of it. She was in a lot of pain for a long time, and now her life is different forever because I couldn't control myself from saying something awful."

"You didn't mean it."

"I did," he tells her, because she needs to understand this. He lays his palms flat on the countertop. "I shouldn't have, and maybe other children would have said it and not meant it, but for at least thirty seconds I _did_ mean it. I wanted her to be hurt and she was. I meant it that much." He exhales. "I was twelve. I lasted a few more years away at school, but eventually that became too much a trial. I was better off on my own."

"Kilgrave, that's so fucked up." She looks truly horrified, and he feels fresh anxiety wash over old shame."How did you ever—I mean, Jesus, anything could have happened to you."

What she means is, _you_ could have happened to people. He can tell. She's more worried about him than for him, of course she is. Her self-imposed job is to protect people from threats like him.

"I'm aware it's fucked up," he says, distasteful. "That's precisely why I'm so careful. Other people can slip up, with no harm done, but it takes more effort on my part. So you will have to excuse me if I'm not as reckless as you are."

"Is that how you live your life? No harm done? What about doing some good?"

"Now you sound like your friend, what's-her-name."

Jessica frowns. "Trish. You're right, I do sound like her, because she's fucking right, Kevin."

He flinches. "I've asked you not to call me that."

She leans over on bar stool, gets right up in his face, close enough that he can smell the whiskey on her breath. God, she's magnificent.

"I don't understand you at all," she says in a hush, sounding fiercely frustrated. "Your alias is _stupid_ , and you don't need a superhero name if all you're doing with your power is getting free designer suits and overpriced wine."

"Just because you want to drink that swill—"

She leans closer and kisses him.

This is actually unprecedented, in his life. He's had roughly seventy sexual partners, and he has explicitly asked each of them if he could kiss them before doing so (though some of them had skipped the kissing entirely).

He pulls away, though it pains him to do so. He has to be sure he hasn't made a mistake. "Did you mean to do that?"

She doesn't laugh at him, thank god, or ask what he means. She just rolls her eyes and says "yes, you idiot, that's why I did it."

There are no words that are safe, nothing he can say that won't either betray his feelings or force her to have feelings, which is the last thing he wants. He bypasses language entirely and kisses her again.

#

The walk to his place is short, and he doesn't remember any of it. He remembers the way her hair moves against her collar in the wind, and the way she slips her arm through his, walking close. She kisses him again in the elevator, and doesn't stop.

"Tell me," he says, trying to fishing his house keys out of his jacket pocket with her legs wrapped around his waist.

"Tell you what?" she asks, biting his neck.

"I don't know, your choice. Anything, just tell me something. I'm going mad over here."

She holds his face between her hands, says "You're a good person, Kevin Thompson. Kilgrave. Whatever, you are, and I'm glad I met you."

He kisses her again and decides maybe it's better if he doesn't try to talk. He gets the door unlocked and stumbles through, Jessica clinging to him, and he decides that getting involved perhaps isn't such a terrible idea.


End file.
